Author: Shaykh-ul-Islaam Muhammad Ibn 'Abd-il-Wahhaab

Source: Al-Manhaj

Translator: Abu Maryam Isma’eel Alarcon

Published: Sunday 26th July, 2015

Foreword

All praise be to Allaah and may His peace and blessings be on the Messenger, Muhammad. Before you is the English translation of a classical work written by one of the great Imaams of the past, Shaykh-ul-Islaam Muhammad Ibn 'Abd-il-Wahhaab, rahimahullaah. The book Masaa'il-ul-Jaahiliyyah (Aspects of the Days of Ignorance) is a small treatise consisting of a few pages, which is basically a summarized list of a hundred and twenty-eight points - each point representing one aspect of belief or practice that the people of the Days of Ignorance were upon, which Islaam came to oppose.

There are several source texts for Imaam Ibn 'Abd-il-Wahhaab's treatise, all varying in the amount of points and the order in which these points are arranged. For example, Shaykh 'Abdur-Rahmaan Ibn Hasan Aali Shaykh states in Fat'h-ul-Majeed (page 310) that it consists of 120 points. Other sources, such as Ad-Durar list it as 127 points. Still, the text form of it was printed several times on different occasions, containing 128, 129 and 131 points. The source we based our translation on was a brochure-like pamphlet given to us by one of our brothers from Yemen, which was printed and distributed free by Daar Al-Watan of Riyaad, Saudi Arabia. This text contains 128 points.

To our knowledge, this is the first time this book has been translated into English and put into printable book format, although the text for it was roughly translated on cassette recording when Shaykhs Saleem Al-Hilaalee and Abu Anas Hamad Al-'Uthmaan came to the United Kingdom to teach it a few years ago.

The translator of this present treatise referred to these sets of tapes, which can be purchased from Salafi Publications, for corrections and additional footnotes. So we ask Allaah to reward the brothers who were responsible for producing these sets of tapes, [1] especially Dawood Burbank for his work on translating from both of the Shaykhs on separate occasions.

We have also made the Arabic text from the pamphlet available for download on a separate file, which can be attached to this book as an Appendix. Footnotes were added by the translator to add clarification and provide evidence for points that required it. These footnotes are based on the explanation found in the cassettes and on research of other books.

Footnote

[1] The explanation of Massa'il-ul-Jaahiliyyah by Shaykh Saleem Al-Hilaalee occurs in four tapes and its explanation by Shaykh Abu Anas occurs in nine tapes.

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